Honestly Okay
by BehrBeMine
Summary: Spike and Dawn find their bearings together.


Title: Honestly Okay  
Author: BehrBeMine  
Feedback: Don't tell me I suck. Unless it's true. I really hope you like it.  
Disclaimer: I don't own anything. Don't sue, I'll cry. ;p  
Summary: Spike and Dawn find their bearings together.  
Rating: G  
Author's Note: Dedicated to sexymermaid, who has so inspired me with her work that I decided to try another 'Buffy' fic.

- -  
_"I just want to feel safe in my own skin;  
__I just want to be happy again."  
_-- Dido

The world is a vampire. Cruel, dead, soulless. It rips away those closest to you, and leaves you alone with nothing, nothing to your name.

The world has taken Buffy. She did a swan dive into a mass of otherworldly energy, was electrocuted, and fell to the ground. She's somewhere else now; her soul has been stolen and taken, maybe, to hell. But I tell myself that's not true. Buffy can't be in hell, because _I'm_ in hell. Surely there's nothing worse than this.

I am an orphaned ninth grader. My mother and my sister are gone. I walk among the rubble below the tower built by crazy people, where Buffy left me to kill herself, where she told me I had to be strong. By saying nothing, I promised to try.

Spike is crying. He has collapsed to his knees. His hands hide his face that is crumpled in pain. Not for the first time, I feel we share the same heart, the same agony. I want to comfort him, but I'll be no comfort to anyone anymore. I can't even comfort myself. Xander looks as though he's been punched in the chest; Willow and Tara huddle together, in tears. Anya doesn't understand the complexity of the moment, as we stare as one at my fallen sister. Our fallen hero. She died to save me. She gave me the gift of life, and all I can think is how I want to throw it back, give it away, just to have her again. I've already lost a mom. Please, God, don't take the rest of my family away from me, too.

--

_When I was a little girl, Buffy ran away. She went to live in L.A. and become a waitress with her middle name. She didn't tell anyone she was leaving, or where she was going. Giles looked for her for months. Mom cried. Many times._

_On the first day of Buffy's absence, I asked Mom about her. Mom said that Buffy had left, and she didn't know when she would be back._

_I took the opportunity to sneak into Buffy's room and raid her closet. I snatched her lipstick and painted my lips peach and plum. I tried on her jewelry, countless necklaces at once, bracelets laced up my arm. Though my ears weren't pierced, I pretended I could wear the earrings, too. I pretended I was blonde, and taller, and a model. I pretended I was Buffy._

_I pretended I had friends who really cared. I didn't have friends the way Buffy had friends. I never have. Buffy's were all, "till death do us part". Mine were more like, "I'll see you later. I have better things to do." Janice, and Becky, and Caitlyn. I would play with them, and we would be in the same room, but they wouldn't really be there. I'd brush my Barbie's hair and dress her in her snazzy pink slinky dress. She was taller than me, thin, and blonde, like my big sister, who I hated, and loved, all at once. Becky would sneer and say that we were too old for dolls; she would grab my Barbie and hurl her into the trash. I would retrieve her when nobody was looking, and sulk all the way home._

_I waited for Buffy that first day she was gone, dressed in her clothes, with feather boas wrapped about my neck, and the exaggerated low neckline of a pretty white shirt, with flower patches stuck all over it. I waited on the living room couch, getting up, excited whenever I heard a car door slam outside of the window. I just knew she was coming back soon, and I was ready to show her how grown up I could look, could be._

_I waited for hours, swinging my legs against the couch cushion, kicking the air. I waited for so long, until the sun set behind me, and the walls burned with the faint pink and orange of the sun's dying colors. I waited until it got dark, and the boogeyman no doubt climbed the stairs to my room. I waited for so long... and Buffy never came._

_My tears burned into my pillow as sleep evaded me that night. Buffy was really gone, without saying goodbye. She must not have cared about me at all. And I never got to tell her that I cared about her. That I didn't exist solely to eat the rest of the cereal, and choose the funny shapes of our pancakes, and steal into her room, invading her stuff. I didn't exist solely for her to yell at me and to pierce my face with her outraged eyes. I was her little sister, and I loved her, and she didn't know._

_Months later, when Buffy finally came home, I hid in the closet, and watched through the slit in the barely opened door as Buffy hugged Mom, both with shining tears in their eyes. I saw the unease and the weariness in my older sister's face, in her every movement. I watched, unnoticed, as she didn't ask about me._

--

It's the day after Buffy's funeral. We laid her out in a cheap coffin wearing a drab black dress she never would have chosen. We don't have much money. Willow and Tara have begun moving into the house. They're going to live with me. They're going to take care of me. They've promised that I will be okay.

I wanted to visit Buffy's grave on my own tonight, but no one will let me leave. Xander's grip on my arm is like steel, as he voices "like hell" he's going to let me go out into the night, alone. He offers to go to the grave with me, but if I can't be by myself, it just won't be the same.

I know that I am loved. But I am broken. My batteries have been extracted, leaving me motionless, my face a blank portrait, showcasing nothing. Not even pain. I am beyond the point of pain.

Spike comes in the front door as we sit together in the living room, mourning silently, no one saying a thing. I would talk if I had something to say. It seems everyone else feels the same. Willow keeps trying to bring up a cheerful topic, her voice false, wavering. But nothing catches on, and her voice dies out, leaving us again in the grip of this awful silence that threatens to overtake us for eternity.

"Spike," greets Xander, refusing to stand. "Get out."

Spike's tongue runs over his front teeth as he keeps his mouth closed. He gives Xander a scathing glance, saying nothing. And then he looks to me. His face softens considerably, and suddenly he looks like he's going to break down again. I don't think I can take it. Any more crying will be the death of me, and I'll follow my sister, wherever she's gone.

"Going shopping," Spike voices at long last, his eyes never leaving my face. "Want to take the Bit with me. Get her some ice cream or some such."

"Ice cream won't help anything," Xander says, defensive and protective of me. He leans toward me, brushing his shoulder with my trembling side. "She doesn't want to go with you."

"No, I do!" I say, rising to a stand. I can't take any more of this group silence, and I want to be with Spike. He understands me. Better than anyone else in this room. Xander's eyes meet mine, hurt that I would disagree with him. "I -- it's okay," I tell him, trying to be assuring when I'm not. "I want to get out of the house. There are too many things around with memories..."

Slowly, Xander stands. He eyes Spike with the same cruel malice both have always felt for each other. Spike seems too hurt still to return the glare. He doesn't take his eyes off of me.

"Ice cream, and then bring her home," says Xander quietly.

"Want to take her to Wal-Mart, too," Spike says, his voice even, like a beating heart. "Get her something to get her mind off of... things."

Xander looks to Willow for help. She shrugs her shoulders slowly and gently. Her voice is just as gentle: "Don't keep her out too late, Spike. She needs her rest. She's exhausted." She is right.

"Won't keep her long," Spike promises. He gestures to me weakly, extending his arm. He looks... defeated. "Come along, Bit. Let's get you a little pretty."

It's the first time he's talked to me since the day Buffy died. He hasn't been around; he's been clinging to the shadows and the night, not emerging from his crypt. Likely he's dying inside. Just like me. As he closes the front door behind us, and we stand together on the moon-lit porch, I reach over and hug him to me, pulling his body in close, inhaling the scent of his cigarettes. He seems at a loss for how to reciprocate, standing rigid, not giving in to my love snuggles. I just so desperately need to feel close to someone. Everyone's so busy protecting me that they fail to realize no one gets close to me anymore. No one touches me, ever, as if I'm a frail thing, made of glass. At first I wondered if they were right in leaving me alone, lest I shatter. But now, holding Spike to me, burying my face in his chest, I realize I was wrong.

At last, he reaches his arms around my body, and we tremble together, standing on my front porch. I wonder how many times he's been with Buffy on this porch, and how many times I have. I wonder which one of us misses her more; which one of us loved her the most. We nearly suffocate each other with our need to cling to something, squeezing tight to our skin. I refuse to cry, holding back my tears, wanting to just be with someone, without the sniffles. If I have to blow my nose into one more tissue, it's likely to crack and fall off my face.

Finally, after long minutes of simply clinging to him, I reluctantly let Spike go, easing my body away from his. I look up into his face. And I see tears in his eyes.

He ushers me to a red truck that's parked in our driveway. "Whose is that?" I ask, my voice strained, barely carrying sound.

Spike sniffles behind my back, and wipes something from his face. "Belongs to one of my poker buddies. Said I could borrow it for a while. Needed a way to get around."

"Oh. Um... works for me."

"Good."

I climb into the front passenger seat, because I want to see the road, and there is no back seat. Spike gets in on his side, flopping heavily onto the upholstered material, sighing as if it were painful, to sit, to remain still for a moment. I stare because I know the feeling.

As Spike turns the keys in the ignition, a drop of rain slaps the windshield. A summer storm is upon us. I wonder if I care. It seems fitting, for Spike and me to be caught in the rain, protected only by the metal of the top of the truck. I look at the keychain that sports one of those mini Beanie Babies as more rain begins to fall.

Spike glances at me, then follows my line of sight. "Oh. The keys. They belong to my friend, too."

"Oh." It seems to be all I can say anymore. What else is there to say?

So, we're off. We're driving, on the way to Wal-Mart. Or perhaps we're going nowhere. It doesn't matter to me. I drum my fingers on my jean-clad thighs, as Spike turns on the windshield wipers. As it clears my vision, I think to myself that he's my hero, always protecting me.

I have to ask, as the silence stretches a mile between us. "When will you stop looking out for me?"

Quite frankly, without glancing away from the road, Spike asks me, "Has the world ended, Bit?"

Yes. I'd say it has.

Even so, I smile to myself, from hearing his words. He'll protect me till the end of the world. It's the first real smile I've had since that awful moment on the tower, when I was without words, and yet supposed to say goodbye.

--

_I was a girl one day, and a Key the next. Suddenly, my life was a lie; everything I'd ever done, every chronicle in my diaries, it was all planted, it was fake. None of it truly happened. I wasn't there that summer when Buffy ran away; I wasn't there in Mom's arms for cuddles until I was ten. I wasn't little Pumpkin Belly. I was nothing. Nothing but a Key._

_I locked myself behind a door and slit open my skin. My voice was deadly, dangerous, just as my heart was inside. "Is this blood?"_

_I was real. I **am** real. I wanted to be real. I wanted so much to have my memories exist again. I wanted to know if Mom ever imagined what it would be like without me around, if Buffy ever wished that I wasn't there. I needed to know if everyone would have been better off without me._

--

"Why are you there for me?" I ask faintly, looking at the splashes of rain soaking the black of the street that quickly keeps passing me by.

"Promised Big Sis." He clears his throat. "And I love you."

The rain continues to soak the street. The car continues to roll. And we head off into oblivion; it doesn't matter where we wind up. I have him, and he has me. We'll miss Buffy together.

We don't go to Wal-Mart, or to find some ice cream. Spike parks the truck after following the winding road into the cemetery. We sit in the car, silent, as the roof is pounded again and again by the tiny droplets of water. I turn and stare out my window, looking for the graves that are dear to me. We buried Buffy as close to Mom as possible. When we buried Mom, we managed to buy the two plots of ground beside her grave. One for me... one for Buffy. Now there's only one plot left. I wonder when it will be filled. I hope it will be as soon as possible. I can't bear this pain, this loss, this loneliness.

But I turn my head and look at Spike as he stares forward through the windshield, off into the distance. He seems lost in his own little world. I wish I could climb in, to step out of mine.

I want to lean forward and kiss him. But I know that's not what he wants. That's not the way he loves me. I am like a child to him. His child. He would only push me away, and I would feel more alone than ever.

I recall the way Tara offers me her lap sometimes, and I let myself fall and let my head rest on her. She pets my head gently, combing her fingers through my long hair. I want to lay that way on Spike, but I don't. I hold back. It's not my place.

It's Buffy's.

We sit in the truck in the graveyard, on that slight, winding road for as long as we can stand. Eventually, the rain clears up, and the clouds open to reveal the velvety black of the sky, with the diamond stars caught as frozen tears dotting everything above us. I think of turning the radio on, but I realize I like the quiet. I realize Spike probably finds comfort in being able to hear my heartbeat. So he can know that one of us Summers girls is still alive, will with him, still loving him. He is my comfort in this world that has left me alone.

I'm still looking at him, after all this time. Finally, he turns his head and stares back into my eyes. The vaguest hint of a smile curves along his lips, and I smile back, or try to. Neither one of us succeeds very well.

"So," he says finally, "ice cream?"

I nod, accepting the gesture. We'll eat ice cream together, and he'll know that I love him, too. And that I'm thankful that he's here, and I'm not so alone among people who don't know how to comfort me. We comfort each other, even when there is nothing left between us but emptiness and grief. Somehow, our hands join. I squeeze his tightly, almost digging my nails into his flesh. He doesn't seem to mind, or notice. All he seems to notice is that I'm here, I'm good, I'm beside him. Neither one of us is alone anymore.

We'll be okay. We'll get through this. We have to. We will. Together. It will be okay, because it has to be. It will be.

Someday.

- -  
end


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